The use of optical fiber has become widespread in telecommunications applications. Light signals passed along such fiber are capable of extremely high data throughput rates, especially when coupled with throughput optimizing technologies such as dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM). Higher throughput over an optical fiber, as is used in long-distance optical transmissions, typically requires a signal with higher power and, accordingly, the fiber must be designed to increasingly stringent design tolerances to accommodate that higher power.
In telecommunications facilities, such as switching facilities, it is often necessary to connect multiple components with lengths of optical fiber. Traditionally, it has been desirable to use the minimum length of fiber necessary to connect the components to avoid clutter in the facilities. As a result, a typical method of connecting two components has been to measure the length of optical fiber necessary to connect two components and use a length of fiber having connectors on each end to connect to the respective components. If the components were then moved with respect to each other, reconnecting them was simply a matter of obtaining a longer length of fiber and attaching connectors to that new fiber.
However, while using such connectors with optical fibers is sufficient in relatively low-power optical applications, it becomes less desirable as the power of the optical signal passed across the fiber increases, such as the case in long-haul optical transmission applications. This is because optical fiber carrying relatively high power signals tends to fail more readily at the connector due to, for example, signal leakage and heat build-up at the connector. Therefore, in more recent attempts at connecting two or more optical components, multiple lengths of fiber were spliced together to avoid the need for connectors. Splicing for high-power applications requires very stringent alignment of the fibers to prevent discontinuities in the spliced fiber. Thus, the splicing operation was often a time consuming effort. Therefore, in order to eliminate the need for re-splicing the fiber in the event the components were moved relative to one another, a long length of fiber was used. The resulting spliced length of optical fiber between the two components typically significantly exceeded the minimum length necessary to connect those components. In order to prevent clutter due to the excess fiber, spools were used to store the excess fiber. Thus, for example, if the components were relocated subsequent to being connected, additional fiber was available to bridge any increased separation distance between the components.
FIGS. 1A and 1B show, respectively, a three dimensional view and a top view of an illustrative prior spool 101 used for storing such excess fiber. In those figures, fiber 102 was wound around a central spindle 103 that was supported by side members 106. One end of optical fiber 102 extended in direction 105 and was connected to a first optical component and a second end of optical fiber 102 extended in direction 104 and was connected to, illustratively, a second optical component. When additional fiber was needed, e.g., to bridge the aforementioned increased separation distance due to moving the components, the fiber could simply be unwound from the spool. Thus, the costs associated with repeated splicing of fiber in relatively high power applications were avoided.